Food Safety Management

GMP

GMP establishes the operational conditions and requirements necessary to ensure hygiene throughout the food chain.

What is GMP?

GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) establishes the operational conditions and requirements necessary to ensure hygiene throughout the food chain and for the production thereof.

GMP consists of guidelines that define management and handling actions, with the purpose of ensuring favourable conditions for the production of safe food. They are also useful for the design and operation of establishments and for the development of processes and products related to food.

GMP have been developed by the Codex Alimentarius with the main objective of customer protection. It includes many basic operational conditions and procedures that are required to be met by the food company. For example, some of them can be:

The construction and layout of the food premises

The training provided to the employees

The adequate maintenance of equipment and utensils used within the company

The use of suitable chemicals within and around the food premises including cleaning chemicals, pest control chemicals and machine lubricants, including and effective pest control program

The identification and storage of waste within and by the company

The implementation and effectiveness of the traceability system

The cleanliness of premises, equipment, utensils, floors, walls and ceilings.

Helps you with

Costs reduced and resources saved

Evidence of safe and efficient food handling

Compliance with legal requirements and builds customer trust

Ability to trade internationally

Food culture within your company

Reduction of claims, returns, reprocesses and rejections

The quality and safety management of every company is based on GMP and these are the starting point for the implementation of a HACCP system.

Note: NQA offers unaccredited GMP registration as a start point for the implementation of basic hygiene requirements.

Benefits of Food Safety Certification

Cuts investigation time to a minimum

The management system helps you to reduce food safety breach investigation time.

Customer satisfaction

Deliver products that consistently meet customer requirements and a service that is dependable and can be relied on.

Proven business credentials

Legal compliance

Understand how statutory and regulatory requirements impact your organization and its customers.

Ability to win more business

Procurement specifications often require certification as a condition to supply, so certification opens doors.

Respond to situations

Ideal for responding to situations that can compromise the food safety of both products and production processes.

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Steps to Certification

Step 1

Complete a Quote Request Form so that we can understand your company and requirements. You can do this by completing either the online quick quote or the online formal quote request form. We will use this information to accurately define your scope of assessment and provide you with a proposal for certification.

Step 2

Once you’ve agreed your proposal, we will contact you to book your assessment with an NQA Assessor. This assessment consists of two mandatory visits that form the Initial Certification Audit. Please note that you must be able to demonstrate that your management system has been fully operational for a minimum of three months and has been subject to a management review and full cycle of internal audits.

Step 3

Following a successful two stage audit, a certification decision is made and if positive, then certification to the required standard is issued by NQA. You will receive both a hard and soft copy of the certificate. Certification is valid for three years and is maintained through a programme of annual surveillance audits and a three yearly recertification audit.